Selling cars is big business, very big business. It stretches way beyond theforecourt. Brian Byrne looks over the many merchandising weapons themakers use to make their marque
It was a case of the guy who made the suit a "must have", meeting his double in miniature. On a visit to Dublin, Michael Schumacher couldn't miss the little fella who was pushed out of the crowd in front of him.
He had all the gear that Schuie himself wore on the podium every time he lifted a trophy that had just added more points to his World Champion tally: the racing suit, the boots, and the cap with the prancing horse.
Merchandising a motoring brand doesn't get much better than in Ferrari. You can see it at every Formula 1 track, where the sea of red jackets and Ferrari flags makes the strongest statement possible about the popularity of a car and its drivers.
We may question which is really the brand - Ferrari or Shuie? No matter, the fact is that merchandising around a car marque or even a model is today such a big business that it means many makers are almost as big in the fashion and novelties business as they are in car-building.
Just how big, though, depends on the country. In Britain, for instance, it's worth many millions of pounds. In Ireland, hard figures are difficult to find, but the cult of the car jacket is still of limited market interest.
"Most people here don't expect to buy a jacket with a carmaker's badge on it - they expect it for free," says Glen O'Reilly of Ford dealers Winfield Motors in Dublin. O'Reilly probably buys more allied merchandise - such as jackets and T-shirts - from Ford of Ireland than all the other Ford dealers combined, but he uses it for promotions rather than selling it.
"The ethos isn't here like it is Britain, where it is huge," he says. "So it's very hard for a dealer to stock a big range of clothing, without the demand."
And, anyway, enthusiasts who want to get into the gear often patronise British specialist shops, either in person or by Internet or catalogue, because the range is better.
"The car companies here don't have associated merchandise sales as high on their priorities," says O'Reilly. "But what DOES move is anything to do with Ford's sponsorship of the Champions League Football programme, under the brand 'Destination Ford'. Footballs, shirts, they all move because the dealers and football link together to a customer base."
It might be slow, but it is growing, according to Christy Leonard, parts and accessories marketing manager for Fiat Auto Ireland, which also sells the Alfa Romeo brand here. And there are times when it can get very big. "When we had the Alfa Cuore Sportivo exhibition in the RDS two years ago, we sold over £50,000 worth of merchandise in the two weeks," he recalls. "As well as Alfa clothing, we were selling lots of high-
quality souvenirs, at a level where we weren't able to keep a lot of items in stock. So events are a good time to sell car-associated merchandise."
Location is important. A recent promotion in Dublin's Brown Thomas store involved setting up an Alfa Boutique, and was highly successful in selling items such as leather goods and watches with the Alfa branding.
"Essentially, you can sell stylish merchandise if the original brand is noted for style," says Alfa Romeo Ireland's communications manager Joe Gantly. "In the proper setting we can sell the merchandise if it's good. And, of course, it all helps raise the awareness of the cars."
It depends, of course, on the image of the car. For niche-seller Subaru, for instance, the brand's carefully-nurtured success in the World Rally Championships has instigated a wide interest in racing and rally gear. "It has become very important for us, because we don't have the same 'voice' in the marketplace, or the advertising budget of the big makers," says Neville Matthews, managing director of Subaru Ireland. "So, from our point of view, the merchandise gives us a presence, a branding power that we wouldn't get in the usual advertising media."
But he makes it clear that there'd be no point in having Subaru clothing and toys unless there was a success already behind them: "A few years ago, there would have been no story, and so no reason for anyone to want to buy a Subaru jacket. "But today we have a very successful story, and the sea of blue gear that we saw at the Punchestown World Rally Masters event was its own reflection of our cars' success."
A growth in rallying interest as a family sport also helps, as a Subaru-interest family group will all want their own items of clothing, toys and memorabilia."But we're still not exploiting this properly here," says Matthews. "Our dealers are not generally geared up to stocking the merchandise, and we depend mainly on having the Pro-Drive catalogue of Subaru stuff from which customers can order."
Of course, it's not confined to carmakers. Caterpillar, makers of hulking great earthmoving machines, brought their own sense of sartorial style to men's clothing stores. However, it's not clear if many bulldozer drivers spend their leisure hours wearing Caterpillar gear?
Another brand with motor racing connections, Renault, also finds that the allied merchandise business isn't a major side of the business here. Philip Sweeney of Renault Liffey Valley figures the real money is still in owners "dressing up" their cars rather than themselves.
"Some young Clio buyers can spend several thousands of euro extra on their cars, upgrading suspensions, buying alloy wheels, even installing speakers in their sound systems that take up the whole boot space of the car," he says. He hopes the Formula 1 clothing side of the business "might grow - but F1 is a limited market. People either love it or hate it."
Sometimes matching the time of year and the product is the key. A number of Fiat/Alfa dealers have been successful in selling electrically-powered cars for children at Christmas. They're not expensive, and the only "open-topped" Fiat Multiplas on the market that sell at that time of the year.
It's kind of the same thing as that little boy who met his hero, and who may well now grow up to be a racing driver himself when he looks back at his picture with Michael Schumacher.
"Yes, we're hoping those three and four-year-olds with sit-in toy Alfas will grow up to buy the real thing," says Joe Gantly with a Jesuitic grin. "It's the right age to get them in. And there's no VRT to worry about . . ."